Surely We Can All Agree On What ‘Straight' Means

With six weeks to go until the start of the Premiership season, it has been announced that some Law amendments will come into force on August 1.

The wheels of World Rugby grind exceedingly slow, and after specific international trials, we now move into a global trial, with a full year to assess the amendments’ impact before the moratorium in fiddling with the Laws comes into place, twelve months before the next RWC.

There must have been more column inches written about crooked scrum feeds than any other aspect of the game, and more fans must have huffed and puffed, and spluttered into their beer on this seemingly simple issue. I’ve never met anyone who was a supporter of feeding the ball straight into the second row, or anyone who could understand what was so damned difficult about addressing the issue – how hard could it be?

For the past couple of seasons we’ve had the total nonsense whereby if any part of the ball, even 1mm if the ref ’s eyesight was good enough to measure that, touched the centre line of the tunnel, then it was deemed to be straight. It seemed as though administrators and officials had simply given up on the problem, and it was less and less talked about – the feeling seemed to be growing that nothing would be done about it, but now it looks as though they’re having another go.